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Radon Releases from Australian Uranium Mining and Milling Projects: Assessing the UNSCEAR Approach

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Radon Releases from Australian Uranium Mining and Milling Projects: Assessing the UNSCEAR Approach Author's personal copy Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 99 (2008) 288e315 www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvrad Radon releases from Australian uranium mining and milling projects: assessing the UNSCEAR approach Gavin M. Mudd* Institute for Sustainable Water Resources, Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Wellington Road, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia Received 5 January 2007; received in revised form 10 August 2007; accepted 13 August 2007 Available online 3 October 2007 Abstract The release of radon gas and progeny from the mining and milling of uranium-bearing ores has long been recognised as a po- tential radiological health hazard. The standards for exposure to radon and progeny have decreased over time as the understanding of their health risk has improved. In recent years there has been debate on the long-term releases (10,000 years) of radon from ura- nium mining and milling sites, focusing on abandoned, operational and rehabilitated sites. The primary purpose has been estimates of the radiation exposure of both local and global populations. Although there has been an increasing number of radon release stud- ies over recent years in the USA, Australia, Canada and elsewhere, a systematic evaluation of this work has yet to be published in the international literature. This paper presents a detailed compilation and analysis of Australian studies. In order to quantify radon sources, a review of data on uranium mining and milling wastes in Australia, as they influence radon releases, is presented. An extensive compilation of the available radon release data is then assembled for the various projects, including a comparison to predictions of radon behaviour where available. An analysis of cumulative radon releases is then developed and compared to the UNSCEAR approach. The implications for the various assessments of long-term releases of radon are discussed, including aspects such as the need for ongoing monitoring of rehabilitation at uranium mining and milling sites and life-cycle accounting. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Uranium mining; Radon; Australia; UNSCEAR 1. Introduction The exhalation and release of radon gas into the environment are the products of the radioactive decay chain of primordial uranium or thorium, specifically the isotopes 238U, 235U and 232Th. The radon isotopes formed from these decay chains are 222Rn (‘radon’), 219Rn (‘actinon’) and 220Rn (‘thoron’), which are the direct decay products of the radium isotopes 226Ra, 223Ra and 224Ra, respectively, in these chains. Due to the low abundance of 235U in natural uranium and the short half-life of actinon (4 s), most work concentrates on 222Rn and its decay progeny since this is the dominant source of exposure. In general, most uranium deposits contain low primary thorium (232Th) and hence thoron (220Rn) is generally considered to be of minor radiological importance. All reference to radon and radium here- after refers to 222Rn and 226Ra, respectively. * Tel.: þ61 3 9905 1352; fax: þ61 3 9905 4944. E-mail address: [email protected] 0265-931X/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jenvrad.2007.08.001 Author's personal copy G.M. Mudd / Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 99 (2008) 288e315 289 Radon is a chemically inert noble gas with a half-life of about 3.8 days, while its decay products or progeny of various isotopes of bismuth (Bi), polonium (Po) and lead (Pb) generally forms solids at normal environmental con- ditions (Cothern and Smith, 1987). The half-lives of radon progeny vary from microseconds to minutes to years. The rates of radon release are complex and depend on many factors, such as rock mineralogy and structure, the dis- tribution of parent radionuclides (e.g. 238U, and 226Ra), temperature and moisture content (Barretto, 1973; Cothern and Smith, 1987; Hart, 1986; Lawrence, 2006). The fraction of radon which is released relative to its total production is known as the emanation coefficient, and can range from 0 to 1 but is generally between 0.2 and 0.5 (Flu¨gge and Zimens, 1939). Due to the natural abundance of about 2.7 mg/kg uranium in soils and rocks (Langmuir, 1997; Titayeva, 1994), there is a global average radon exhalation from soils of about 0.015e0.023 Bq/m2/s (UNSCEAR, 1982). The seasonally-adjusted arithmetic mean radon and thoron exhalation from Australian soils are about 0.022 Æ 0.005 and 1.7 Æ 0.4 Bq/m2/s, respectively (Schery et al., 1989). The average 226Ra and 224Ra soil activities are 28 and 35 mBq/g, respectively (Schery et al., 1989). Within the vicinity of a uranium deposit or project, the release rates of radon and activities in air can be elevated over natural background, depending on local conditions and/or project operations. The inhalation or ingestion of sig- nificant activities of radon and progeny has long been considered to be related to elevated incidences of lung cancer and other diseases in uranium industry workers (Dalton, 1991; Fry, 1975; NAS, 1980; NAS, 1988; Teleky, 1937). In recent years there have been some attempts to quantify the long-term (w10,000 years) public radiological exposure from the release of radon due to uranium mining and milling operations as part of life-cycle analyses of the nuclear fuel chain. The principal work has been undertaken by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) in their periodic reports to the United Nations General Assembly. The main analysis of radon releases and the associated public radiological exposure over 10,000 years are given in UNSCEAR (1993), with a minor update by UNSCEAR (2000). The UNSCEAR analyses combine other stages of the nuclear fuel chain and present normalised radiological exposures per annual unit of energy generated, summarised in Table 1. The different estimates from the 1993 and 2000 reports are based on criticisms, feedback and the adoption of scenarios perceived to be more realistic for modern uranium mines. Both UNSCEAR estimates suggest that uranium mining and milling, based on the assumption of radon releases from tailings only, are the major factors in long-term public radiation exposure from the nuclear fuel chain, generally comprising between 16% and 75% of the local and global exposures from the nuclear fuel chain. The UNSCEAR (1993) estimate for global exposure Table 1 Long-term radiological exposure of the nuclear fuel chain (UNSCEAR analyses) Stage of the nuclear fuel chain Collective effective dose committed per unit energy generated (person Sv/GWe year) UNSCEAR report 1993 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 Period 1970e1979 1980e1984 1985e1989 1990e1994 1995e1997 Local and regional component Mining, milling and tailings 1.5 0.238 0.238 0.238 0.238 0.238 Fuel fabrication 0.003 0.003 0.003 0.003 0.003 0.003 Nuclear reactor operation 1.3 3.2 0.9 0.46 0.45 0.44 Reprocessing 0.25 8.5 1.9 0.17 0.13 0.12 Transportation 0.1 <0.1 <0.1 <0.1 <0.1 <0.1 Total 3.15 11.94 3.04 0.87 0.82 0.81 Global component (including solid waste disposal) Tailings (over 10,000 years) 150 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 Reactors Low-level waste 5 Â 10À5 5 Â 10À5 5 Â 10À5 5 Â 10À5 5 Â 10À5 5 Â 10À5 Intermediate waste 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 Reprocessing solid waste disposal 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 Globally dispersed radionuclides 50 95 70 50 40 40 Total 200.5 103 78 58 48 48 References: UNSCEAR (1993, Table 53, p. 200) and UNSCEAR (2000, Table 45, p. 284). Author's personal copy 290 G.M. Mudd / Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 99 (2008) 288e315 from tailings-derived radon was 150 person Sv/GWe year (ranging from 1 to 1000), with the UNSCEAR (2000) estimate being 7.5 person Sv/GWe year. The radon data and assumptions used by UNSCEAR in their analyses have been questioned by Chambers et al. (1998a,b) and Frost (2000). In general, these authors argue that the UNSCEAR analyses adopt the most pessimistic values and that more realistic radon release scenarios suggest that the exposures are considerably lower. For example, Chambers et al. (1998a,b) argue that the long-term radiological exposure due to radon is 0.96 person Sv/GWe year, considerably lower than the UNSCEAR estimates. The various analyses noted above, however, are still based on a limited survey of studies and the literature and do not take into proper account the numerous investigations which provide actual field measurements of radon releases from rehabilitated, operating and abandoned uranium projects. The UNSCEAR data used for Australia in particular are reliant on written advice from specific operations and appear to use only a minimal degree of field-measured data. It is the normal standard of radiation dose management to follow the ‘as low as reasonably achievable’ or ALARA principle. That is, radiation exposure and doses should be kept to the minimum practicable. In the context of life-cycle analyses of the nuclear fuel chain, and uranium mining specifically, this therefore means the minimisation of public doses during operation and to ensure any changes from baseline radiological conditions following rehabilitation are also minimal, or even potentially beneficial (i.e. a reduction). For this paper, radon exhalation shall refer to the radon per unit area per time (Bq/m2/s) that enters the environment while radon releases shall be used to specify the mass per time (GBq/d) at which radon enters the environment. The sources of radon from a typical uranium project are now reviewed followed by a detailed review of radon re- leases from the various Australian projects compared to pre-mining, where known.
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